


Five

by Slayerwithredhair



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Anchors, Angst, Gen, Loneliness, M/M, Panic Attacks, homeless
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-03-30 15:19:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13954383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slayerwithredhair/pseuds/Slayerwithredhair
Summary: The five times Theo wished he had a pack, and the one time he didn't.AKA the bridge between 6a and 6b that no one asked for.





	1. Chapter 1

Theo thumped his head back against the handle of the backseat door, willing himself to sleep. He was running on about four hours rest in as many days and now, when he finally went to lay his head down, sleep wouldn't come. 

 

He'd been on the road for little over a month now. His breath came as a white puff in front of him and he tugged the blanket higher. A bitter part of him still snarled at how he had gone from being so close to being pack, to alone and even more homeless than before; but the rest of him calmed that feeling with a sad resignation. He'd brought it on himself.  

 

He thought back to the way Liam had looked at him after the final fight with Mr. Douglas and the ghost riders. Theo had followed Scott away from the aftermath at the train tracks, falling into natural step slightly behind him as though his sketchy past and murderous actions had been dissolved.  

 

Liam had been standing outside the front of the school. Corey sat on the concrete steps, wrapped in a blanket with patches of blood seeping through from wounds on his chest. Mason and Hayden sat on either side. He remembered feeling a twinge of concern for his former pack member before his eyes met Liam's. He saw the beta glance at Scott then back at him, a soft frown on his face before he smirked. Then bent his head to say something to Mason but not before Theo had caught the grin. He couldn't quite place Liam’s look, it seemed to be a cross between smugness, relief and pride.  

 

 

Theo smiled softly to himself at the memory and watched the rain run down his truck windows in directionless ribbons, twisting and breaking and racing one another. He hadn't understood the look in Liam's eyes then. Now he did. He knew the beta had been impressed. He knew Liam had leaned down to whisper 'I told you' to Mason. Someone had actually been proud of Theo for something he did. For once he wasn't a failure.  

 

Theo rolled over and closed his eyes thinking of how good it had felt to fight alongside the pack. How Scott had let him fight alongside them. How he, Scott, Malia, and Peter had even laughed and joked, walking back to the school, caught up in the rush of victory. He forced himself to picture Liam’s smug face when he found out Theo had fought on their side, how he'd had his alpha's back. The beta had faced up to Scott after bringing Theo back from Hell, Scott had wanted to send him back and Liam had fought to keep him with them, said that Theo was his responsibility and Scott had made him promise that he wouldn’t regret it. Liam’s look said that Theo hadn’t proved him wrong. 

 

 

Stiles and Lydia had dashed through the doors then, closely followed by the Sheriff. Theo saw Stiles and Peter exchange a nod of some sort before Stiles' eyes fell on him. 

 

"Oh seriously, the ghost riders couldn't have at least taken _him._ " He had groaned aloud.  

 

Theo's hackles rose as nine pairs of eyes turned to him.  

 

He had been wrong, he knew it. He shouldn't have fought with them. He hadn't even given a shit about that fact it was the right thing to do, he'd just wanted to attack something. The apparent hero inside him was just a by-product… Right? 

 

He took a step back. Stiles stood tall on the top step, one hand holding Lydia’s, the Sheriff on his other side. Liam stood next to them with Hayden, Mason and Corey, even Malia was shouldering off to him. Stiles had his pack around him and Theo had no one- again. Not that he could imagine the only pack he had ever had actually being willing to have his back, none of them had been loyal. Not the way Scott's pack were. 

 

He should probably disappear right about now. His truck was here, he could take off and- 

 

"Stiles. I probably wouldn't have survived without him." Theo turned and stared at Scott. The alpha looked tired although the sparkle of the fight was still twinkling in his eye. "Right now, today, he's one of us." 

 

Malia's mouth flew open to argue but Scott silenced her with a look. The rest of the pack was still looking at Theo uneasily and despite what Scott had said he was beginning to wish he was anywhere but here. 

 

Liam was the one to move first. Theo relaxed slightly, he knew this kid and knew the movements he came with now weren't aggressive, he was still looking smugly at Scott as though gloating the fact that he had been right. 

 

All the same Theo couldn't stop his eyes being wary when the beta came to stand in front of him, after a minute Liam smirked lightly and held his fist up, eyebrow raised in the joke no one else understood. 

 

Theo grinned and smashed his fist against Liam's.  

 

"So… Not evil?" Stiles stalked towards them. 

 

Theo said nothing.  

 

"You gonna pull an Anakin Skywalker on us now?" But he said it with a grin. Theo’s lips twitched at the jestful peace offering. Star Wars had always been the thing he and Stiles had talked for hours about before Scott had changed the subject, back before the Dread Doctors. "You had my buddy's back." Stiles clapped him on the shoulder. "And you saved the pack pup from getting himself killed. So I guess..." Theo watched him, eyes narrowed. "We're cool." Stiles muttered.  

 

Theo looked at Liam uncertainly, but the beta just smiled reassuringly. Today they had won, no one cared about anything else. 

 

“Just don’t kill him again, or Mama McCall really will send you to Hell again.” Stiles grinned and Scott laughed, the tension eased and Theo relaxed. 

 

 

A loud banging on his window stirred Theo. He hadn’t quite been asleep but his senses had dropped as he drifted in and out of consciousness. For the first time since he had left, Theo had forgotten the crippling loneliness that pressed in around him, he had remembered how it felt to be one of the pack. And he realised then just how desperately he missed it. The tapping came again and he groaned, snapping the memory away violently. 

 

“Yeah. Sorry.” He mumbled holding his hand in the way of the torch light shining into his window. The deputy glared at him angrily before stepping back to their own car. 

 

Theo scrambled into the front and jammed his key in the engine, blinking his eyes open. Maybe one night he might make it through until dawn.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS:  
> Description of panic attacks

Mountains behind and mountains ahead. The long dusty road stretched out in an impossibly straight line before him and the baking heat of midday cooked the inside of the pickup truck. Oblivious to the roasting within, the blue four-by-four ate up the miles hungrily, as if it were hurrying to get somewhere. Or get away from somewhere. 

 

Theo blinked at the sun and twisted his body so he was angled closer to the open window to try and breathe in fresh air, not that the air outside of the vehicle was any cooler, it all felt like flames burning down his windpipe. 

 

There was a time when the heat would have made him smile, he liked being out in the sun, especially as a wolf, the feel of the sun soaking into his black fur was something he couldn’t put into words but happily basked in. Today, however, the sun offered no such elation. The heat was making him tired, no, the weeks without sleep were making him tired but the heat didn’t help. He had no idea where he was going and out here in the middle of nowhere without a soul in sight, Theo felt very, very alone. In an effort to drown out his own thoughts, Theo flicked the radio on. 

 

It served to distract him for all of ten minutes. 

 

The mountains shook and shivered. The heat making them dance as though they were alive. 

Theo snapped his eyes to the road angrily. Forcing himself not to think of the images behind his eyes, the memories of the last things he saw dancing like that. The terror came with the memories and he pushed them away. 

The hallucinations hadn't plagued him for months now, not since he had been pulled from hell. 

And they weren't coming back now, he snarled at himself. This wasn't a mirage or hallucination. It was just mountains. Plain and simple. 

In the distance a shape hovered and wavered in the heat making it appear unreal, like a mirage. The shape lingered at the side of the road as Theo pressed his foot down, trying to work out what it was. 

It was a hitch hiker. The two-legged creature with a backpack the same size as them came into view. Theo eased off the gas. The human looked exhausted, staggering in the heat. 

Theo growled and stamped his foot down, harder. He wasn't falling for his mind fucking with him again. 

But what if it was real... 

Theo breathed out through his nose. He was the first chimera, an alpha, or he used to be, he didn't need to concern himself with strays. An internal voice that sounded alarmingly like a familiar little beta growled at him and Theo lifted his foot off the pedal. He wasn't that person any more. The knowledge of which offered him a soft moment of relief before a tidal wave of fear hit him in the face. 

He was underground again. The table was cold and aggressive on his back and the straps cut in too tight to his wrists, his neck. The dread doctors were coming again, the needles, the mixture Theo had helped make, gleefully imagining it's next victim. Only for it to be him. The shaking started. His entire body shook the table and the sweat broke across his skin before the needle even touched him. 

With a roar Theo slammed on the brakes, steering off the road with shaking hands. The truck jerked violently over a large rock and shuddered to a stop with a sound that Theo would have problems with later. 

He yanked the keys out before he could do any more damage and leaned back, allowing the shaking to flood through his body. His eyes were screwed shut, both to hide the dancing images of the mountains and because his muscles wouldn't allow him an alternative. His breaths came short and fast and his heartbeat galloped through him, vain attempts to slow only succeeded in intensifying the terror. _No. Please no._

"You're not underground. You're not there anymore." The words would have come out as incoherent, breathless whimpers to anyone but him. He wasn't underground. He was safe. 

If his mind had been able to form cogent thoughts he would have scoffed at the thought of being safe but he wasn't with the dread doctors, he wasn't in hell and no one was trying to kill him. His only danger was himself. 

This dead end of thoughts threw his body into a wilder panicked rush of thrashing and he felt the tears, willing them to cascade if only they would take the pain and horror with them. 

He didn't know how long he sat there, fighting for breath and gasping out ragged cries and snarls as he fought himself. He used to have his control down to a tee. He could lie through his own heartbeat, turn on tears or fangs in an instant, he had even become good at fooling himself. Convinced that he didn't need a pack. That he was stronger alone. 

Who the fuck was he kidding? He couldn't even drive down a goddamn highway without having a panic attack. 

The acceptance of weakness brought a fresh wave of sweat and he allowed the tears to flood his face violently. 

He knew Scott's pack would never be his pack. But god- damn- _fuck-_ he wished for the security of a pack, _any_ pack. Just someone to anchor him. 

An anchor. 

_Find an anchor._

Theo's mind lashed around for anything strong enough to cling on to. 

A familiar angry face surfaced. Piercing blue eyes set in a playful face that could turn fierce and deadly in a second. Usually directed at him. 

The thought of Liam allowed him a deep breath. Not enough to live on, but enough to slow the dangerous cycle of pants he was looped in. 

 

Liam hated him, but Liam had also been the closest thing to a friend Theo had ever had. His memory grounded Theo and the chimera turned towards the feeling like a beacon. 

He wasn't sure how exactly he felt about Liam as his anchor but as his trembling began to ease he realised he was helpless to do anything but grudgingly acknowledge it. A part of him had worked it out when Liam had brought him back from hell. Theo's entire world had shifted, the monster inside him was broken and the need for power was replaced by the need for pack, not ownership of a pack, just to be in one. To belong. 

His instincts pulled him to Liam. He looked at the beta and saw pack, like a gravity. 

Theo put the heels of his palms into his eyes and growled through the breaths. Still trapped in a spiral of pants he couldn't break, but they were slowing. His shaking subsided and he began to feel as though he was regaining control of his limbs. 

He rubbed his hands across his face hard, pulling at the skin but he didn't open his eyes. He wasn't ready for reality yet. Reality was dangerous and just for a few moments more he needed to forget about the world around him and anchor himself. 

 

He allowed thoughts of Liam and the pack to remind him of what it felt like to belong somewhere. How his heart had felt when he had done right, he remembered the look on Liam's face when he had thrown him in the elevator from the ghost riders and said he was being the bait. He thought back to the surprise on Scott’s face when they had trapped the ghost rider and the gate had stuck, how Theo had rushed forward to help him before Scott could get dragged into the cage and instead had found himself in the clutches of the ghost rider, twisting his shoulder from its socket, and suddenly he had felt Liam behind him, the beta gripping onto him and yanking him free. Liam had saved him again, as if dragging his sorry ass from Hell and leaving him in infinite debt wasn’t enough. 

 

 

Theo didn’t realise he had opened his eyes until the wetness on his cheeks told him he had opened the flood gates. He wiped at his cheeks furiously and jammed the key into the ignition, almost as if he thought that the faster he got away from there, the faster he would leave his own panic behind him. 

 

Driving was easier now, he found. It gave his eyes something to glare at and his mind something to think about. 

 

The hitch-hiker wobbled into view again and Theo glared at them before stomping on the gas. Who the hell was he trying to fool, he had no place up here in the light, and he never would. He didn't have a pack, not anymore, no friends, not a single person who gave a shit. 

 

He sped past them, the guilt didn’t touch as he watched them cough at the up thrust of dust the truck spat out. He drove faster and the hitch-hiker disappeared from view. The world was his again. And he was alone in it. Where he deserved to be.


	3. Chapter 3

Theo pulled his truck to a steady stop along the outskirts of a forest. He hoped the location would serve him twofold, both far enough away that any roaming deputies may leave him in peace and isolated enough that the surrounding trees would put his wolf to sleep for a while. 

 

It had been almost three months since he had shifted and his body ached for it. Not just the thrill of a fight, the rush of adrenaline from the combat with another- although he was itching for that too- but just the feeling of the wind in his fur as his paws flew across the earth. 

 

The chimera briefly considered leaping out of his truck and doing just that. But he refrained from a moonlight run, at least for a while. He couldn't risk someone stumbling across his truck and thinking it was abandoned, or worse, trying to steal it. It wasn’t much but the truck was everything. It was all Theo had in the world. His pitiful few belongings not even enough to clutter the inside. 

 

Theo kicked his shoes off and propped his feet up on the dash, his toe nudged against his cell and he reached to pick it up, tugging out the charging cable now that the car's engine was off. The screen was blank, no messages, no calls. No one that missed him, no one that cared. 

 

Sighing and hating himself for doing so, Theo opened his messages to check how long it had been since he had spoken to anyone- he point blank refused to count the local deputies and sheriffs telling him to fuck off as a worthy interaction. 

 

His eyes fell on a message from Stiles. It was dated a month and a half ago. He felt a small rush of regret when he read the message. Stiles had offered him an olive branch. And Theo hadn’t taken it. 

Angrily, he locked his phone and dropped it into the foot well. Theo looked up at the stars and sighed, allowing the memory to surface. 

 

 

_Theo trotted down the steep hill and came to a panting stop beside his truck. It was hidden in the trees just outside the reserve. The run had been refreshing and the cold air had felt amazing. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt so free. He had a place in this town, the pack was tolerating him and he would even go so far as to say some of them were his friends._

_He was about to shift back to human form when he heard a shout, distant and echoing through the town, his wolf ears barely picked it up but there was a touch of supernature to it and he tuned in to the noise of another werewolf. Another shout answered, one that he knew. He could hear the excitement in Scott's beta's voice._

 

Ignore it, Theo. Ignore it. _He told himself. But even as he berated himself for listening his paws carried him forwards and he was cantering in the direction of the sound._

_Liam raced across the field. Lacrosse stick in his hands, the ball lodged in the basket._

_"Liam!"_

_Mason waved a stick at him. Theo watched them from the trees. They wore t-shirts and shorts, none of them were in the uniform and there didn't seem to be any semblance of a team. Especially with Mason racing all over the place yelling for Liam to give him the ball._

_Liam flung the ball at Scott, he caught it easily, dodging away from Corey and sprinting farther up the field. A coyote danced around them, charging around the boys, yipping and darting away._

_Theo plonked himself down and sat to watch them, Lydia was laughing at Malia as she zipped under Stiles' legs and the human face-planted the field._

_A soft noise escaped his snout while he watched. So, this was what it meant to be pack? No power play, no hierarchy, just the effortless ease and adoration of the others making the air light and laughable on a cold uneventful night._

_A large form dashed at Liam and tackled him around the middle. The two boys landed on the ground heavily and Liam rolled over, immediately shoving the larger werewolf off him. Brett staggered back to his feet and ran away with a laugh before Liam was up and tearing after him._

_Theo struggled to slot this into his new definition of pack. Where did the neighbouring pack fit in? Harmony between wolf packs was something foreign to him. It shouldn't work. But Mason was bent double as he laughed at Liam who had just caught up to Brett and successfully tripped him up._

_Theo wasn't surprised when the soft ache started in his chest. He knew they would never look at him the way they looked at each other, but he knew he would never give up wishing he had what they had._

_He stood and turned around with a soft huff._

_Theo walked back to his truck with heavy paws. He had shifted and dressed and clambered into the backseat with the blanket without thinking about his cell. He closed his eyes and willed the sleep to come. The dull glow of his phone screen went unnoticed and he didn't see the text from Stiles. 'Dude, I need you to help me rinse Liam at lacrosse! Get your chimera ass to the school field stat!"_   

 

 

Theo wasn't aware that a soft, sad whine was building in his throat until it sounded into the cabin around him and he coughed, as if there was someone else there that he had to convince. 

 

He wondered again what would have happened if he had actually seen the message from Stiles that night. Would he have gone? A small part of him was pretty sure he would have taken the coward's way out and stayed put. But then another part of him would have gone, the pack was starting to look at him differently now, one little angry beta especially. And he could picture the annoyed scowl on Liam's face that would have covered up the excitement Theo knew they both felt when they locked onto a competition, a fierce competitive streak made of the same fire ran in both of them and it had got them in trouble with Scott more than once. There was the time Liam had challenged Theo to take out a small army of half a dozen hunters single-handedly without killing or maiming even one. There was the other time when Theo dared Liam to start a fight in a neighbouring pack's local bar. There was also the time Corey and Mason had taken bets on who would win in a fight, a fight that had proceeded to last almost four days and entailed every broken bone possible to break at least twice, more blood loss than was humanly possible and quite possibly the closest Theo had actually come to dying since hell- before Scott had turned up. And Theo could see that it had taken all of his willpower to ignore Stiles' demand of "Ground them, ground them all." 

 

"I can't ground them Stiles!" 

 

"Well at least ground Liam, he's basically your kid." 

 

Theo snorted at the memory before the soft pang in his chest came back. The reminder that he had been in a pack then- or almost had been in a pack then. And now... 

 

The thought didn’t finish because Theo shoved open the car door and stripped out of his jeans, dropping to all fours with a thick shaggy coat of fur covering him before he could even work out where that train of thought had even been going.

**Author's Note:**

> Also titled because of [this moment](http://slayerwithredhair.tumblr.com/post/171688240666).


End file.
